Makakis

730:342:01 McGary
Social & Political Philosophy Through History Spring 2015

Study Questions

Be sure to answer every aspect of the question called for by the question. Make sure that you define key concepts and terms and to support your answers. Try to anticipate objections to what you have to say.

1. Explain the “gratitude,” “consent,” and “fair-play” arguments for political obligation sketched in Plato’s Crito. Explain one advantage that these arguments are said to have over “utilitarian” accounts of political obligation. You must define key terms.
2. Socrates agreed to persuade the State to change its views or to accept its commands. Why does Crito think that Socrates is not obligated to accept his sentence? Why does Socrates disagree with Crito?
3. According to Plato in the Republic, what is the relationship between justice and Happiness?
4. Explain and discuss the analogy hat Plato draws in the Republic between the just state and the just individual.
5. Explain the role of the Guardians in Plato’s just community. How are the Guardians, selected and educated? Why are they separated from the rest of the community?
6. Explain Plato’s divided line analogy in Book Six of the Republic.
7. In the Politics, why does Aristotle reject the view that things should be held in common by citizens in a just state?
8. How does Aristotle define human happiness in the just community?
9. According to Aristotle, when can slavery be justified?
10. What does Aristotle mean when he says: “justice is giving each person his due”?
11.What does Hobbes take to be the nature and source of the conflict in his “state of nature?” How does he attempt to resolve this…...